I bought Panther for my iMac DV, and I started it up on the Panther CD, went thru the installation introduction, and it gave me an error saying it wasn't eligible on this machine - I'm guessing it was the firmware, but I clicked too fast and it disappeared. It began to reboot the machine, but hung on the spinning shut down logo.

So... I force rebooted, and now it chimes (sometimes) then waits a few seconds and shuts down. I've got the CD out, held down every key combination, zapped PRAM (when it lets me, not often) and just powers off.

Originally posted by gotohamish Was running OS 9.0 solely. It doesn't boot from ANY cd. I've tried everything. It doesn't even read the CD or get far enough. Even with the original CDs from the box.

I selected a totally clean install, to wipe and replace everything.

I had 192MB of RAM in. The RAM worked fine in OS 9. I also tried it with just 128MB stick in. No good.

AAGH!

Click to expand...

Put ONLY the 64 MB chip that came with your machine in and try it again. The Apple RAM speed spec changed between OS's. In OS 9 you'd be fine with 3-3-3 RAM but OS X.2 and above will excrete their eyes if you don't use 3-2-3 RAM. It's kind of lame but the Apple installed RAM meets the new spec.

If you still have trouble call 1-800-SOS- APPLE or visit an Apple Store near you.... Or e-mail me.

You may want to disconnect the HD and see if it'll boot from the CD, if so everythings OK HW wise.

If you mess up the install enough, it will hang the machine bad enough where you can't key combo out or do much else.

The bootROM (aka firmware) immediately will checks for a ROM file to continue the boot process, if it or the drive is mess up it'll hang the machine. You'll need to take the "bad" drive out of the loop to test the machine and/or get it to boot to CD.

Originally posted by Sun Baked Hopefully it wasn't a firmware upgrade interrupt.

You may want to disconnect the HD and see if it'll boot from the CD, if so everythings OK HW wise.

If you mess up the install enough, it will hang the machine bad enough where you can't key combo out or do much else.

The bootROM (aka firmware) immediately will checks for a ROM file to continue the boot process, if it or the drive is mess up it'll hang the machine. You'll need to take the "bad" drive out of the loop to test the machine and/or get it to boot to CD.

Click to expand...

Thanks - I'll try it in the morning, and post back. In the meantime, any other suggestions would be amazing.

Has anyone discovered if it's possible the Panther Install CD would do the firmware upgrade for you?

I found one of the unused iMacs (iMac DV slot-loading Sage) at my company and tried to install Panther. It had OS X 10.1 and OS 9.2.2 on it when I found it. But it didn't even read the CD.

I thought it was CD-ROM drive that caused the trouble so I clean-installed Panther on it from my Powerbook 550mhz using "Target disk mode." Installation was fine and it still runs on my laptop but not on the iMac.

MacRumors attracts a broad audience
of both consumers and professionals interested in
the latest technologies and products. We also boast an active community focused on
purchasing decisions and technical aspects of the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac platforms.